Anyone ever TFP their friend's pool "just because"

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Mike Hawk

Mike Hawk

0
Oct 28, 2014
103
Tulsa OK
I've agreed to tend to a friend's 30k pool for a couple weeks while they are on vacation. They don't have a timer so they just run their pump 24/7 (sadpanda). They are also using pucks. So really all I'll need to do is net skim, backwash, and check pucks for the most part and call it a day. Knowing me though I'll probably also run the full barrage of tests (CYA, CH, TA, Borate, Salt, ect) to figure out what's going on with their water. The other day when I was over the water looked okayish but it wasn't anywhere near as crystal clear or soft feeling as my water.

Which got me to thinking, I really really really wanna get their salt to 2000ppm and their borate to 50ppm for the subjective improvement to the water and to try to convert them to seeing the light of getting away from pucks. However running the numbers thru pool calc, OUCH! 502 lbs of salt, 110 lbs of team mule, and 6.5 gallons of acid to combat the borax. I'm looking at ~$250 just to get salt and borates up. I still kinda wanna do it though and see if they notice lol
 
Honestly speaking it's not your place to adjust their chemistry and unless you have their explicit permission then I would not do it.

That is just my opinion.
 
Yeah, my act of good will would most likely backfire on me. I'll at least run the numbers and present them to them and my opinions on how to adjust and options on how they can check and adjust themselves in the future.
 
Reddogdan said:
Most of my friends get tired of hearing me talk about TFP. I finally told them I'll be here for them when they need it.
They have just pool stored so long.
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Me Also.

But I will say that my neighbor's pool turned green while they were on vacation and we were dogsitting for them. But I did call him first and tell him what was going on and get full permission to take over his pool before doing so.

And if I had to guess, this pool isn't lacking in salt or borates. It's cloudy due to algae growing in it. I'll also bet that the CYA is through the roof and the chlorine is not keeping up.
 
How would you feel if they were watching your dog and had the vet give it a bunch of shots or something because they think it's better that way, or they borrowed your car and put a bunch of additives in the fuel because they think it's better that way? Probably not too happy, but that is exactly what you are thinking about doing to them. Don't mess with other people's stuff unless they ask you to.
 
My neighbor left town this week and asked me to keep an eye on his pool and empty the skimmer as necessary. He runs a Pool Frog XL mineral based system on it, and I've been dying to see how much chlorine he actually had in that pool, since the Frog system bills itself as "low chlorine". Well, it was. I did a 25mL sample and found .2ppm FC and .2ppm CC. Oddly, I could smell chlorine as I leaned into the pool to get the skimmer basket, even though both FC and CC were pretty low. I guess even a small amount of CC smells when it's equal to or greater than your FC.

Long story short, I'm not even going to tell him I tested anything. Though I did notice he bought a bottle of the walmart liquid chlorine. It had a date code of 166, so I know it was bought recently. It was mostly full if not totally, so I'm not sure what the plan was for it. I may ask him about that, but I'm not pushing my theories on anyone unless they ask me about them. And I most certainly would never put anything in his pool without first asking him. I'd be furious if he did that to me.
 

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Anyone ever TFP their friend's pool "just because"

camueller said:
0.2ppm is what I measured. I drop of R0871 cleared it up with the 25ml sample for both FC and CC. But I guess CC of any measurable level is something you can smell.
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Chances are the CCs would increase if your neighbor added more chlorine. Remember that CCs exist because we put FC into our pools. If your neighbor is running a mineral pool then he likely has no algae but I bet the water is full of urea and nitrogenous waste compounds from sweat, etc. There's also likely a healthy bacteria colony hiding in the pipes somewhere. Since you measured only 0.2ppm (1 drop) of FC, it's effectively 0 because of the testing tolerance. I bet when he does his weekly shock routine the CCs go way up and he's told "that's OK because that means the chlorine is working".

A more interesting number would be his CYA level as that would tell us whether or not any of the FC he is adding is effective at all. If the CYA is really high, then the CCs will be low as well because the HOCl concentration will be moderated to such a low level that the reaction rates for generating CCs will be very slow. In that case, he'd probably be losing the FC to sunlight faster than it can react to form CCs.
 
Re: Anyone ever TFP their friend's pool "just because"

Ah, I see the . Is floating on the end of the line on my screen not attached to the 2 .... That is why you should always use a 0 ;)
 
Re: Anyone ever TFP their friend's pool "just because"

JoyfulNoise said:
Chances are the CCs would increase if your neighbor added more chlorine. Remember that CCs exist because we put FC into our pools. If your neighbor is running a mineral pool then he likely has no algae but I bet the water is full of urea and nitrogenous waste compounds from sweat, etc. There's also likely a healthy bacteria colony hiding in the pipes somewhere. Since you measured only 0.2ppm (1 drop) of FC, it's effectively 0 because of the testing tolerance. I bet when he does his weekly shock routine the CCs go way up and he's told "that's OK because that means the chlorine is working".

A more interesting number would be his CYA level as that would tell us whether or not any of the FC he is adding is effective at all. If the CYA is really high, then the CCs will be low as well because the HOCl concentration will be moderated to such a low level that the reaction rates for generating CCs will be very slow. In that case, he'd probably be losing the FC to sunlight faster than it can react to form CCs.
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That explains a lot, and I would bet you are correct. I didn't bother testing CYA because I didn't think of any of that, and quite frankly was expecting to find a ton more chlorine in the pool than I did. The Frog system claims it should run with less than .5ppm FC, but I was guessing his was higher since he runs his pump 24x7 and is constantly feeding the dichlor tabs it is filled with. I may test CYA level this evening if possible, but I think he gets home today so that may not be possible.

The backstory here is that my neighbor and the previous owner of my house built identical pools by the same company and "got a deal" together. When I bought my house, I was highly skeptical of the Frog system, but was about to close the pool and was busy with moving, so I left it over the winter. Come spring, I saw how much money it was going to take to start up that frog system, and I found this place when researching whether it was worth it. Needless to say, I decided it was not. I'm sure he thinks I'm crazy because I'm dumping bleach in my pool and testing the water obsessively. But my water definitely looks nicer. And there's enough chlorine to neutralize all the sweat and other nasty stuff.

jblizzle said:
Ah, I see the . Is floating on the end of the line on my screen not attached to the 2 .... That is why you should always use a 0 ;)
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I thought about that as I typed my reply last night. From now on, I will always use a 0 in front of a decimal number like that. Who said TFP is only about learning pool stuff? :)
 
Anyone ever TFP their friend's pool "just because"

My guess is they would just go back to there old ways of getting pool stored and using pucks So you would most likely be wasting your money so I would just let it go if it were me but I do understand the wanting to convert them I feel that way all the time when I see people getting pool stored


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OP here.

Talked to my friend with the pool. That cloudiness I saw was in fact the beginning of a bloom and my friend is frustrated that they just spent over $150 at the pool store. As she was saying this I was mentally thinking... geesh $150 would buy A LOT of walmart bleach. Anyway they were assured their water would be perfect in 24 hours but that hasn't been the case. So yeah, I think now is the perfect time to strike up that TFP push again :) They're totally fine with me adding borates and salt after I talked to them about the benefits.

I can't wait to go over their and test their CYA this week while they're gone, I bet it's thru the roof.
 
Not to be a downer, but you can't half-manage their pool using TFP methods and then have a pool service there doing it the pool service way. Your friends needs to make a choice - either go all-in on TFP or keep paying the pool store for their "advice". Adding a bunch of salt and borates isn't likely to change the problems with their pool and, very likely, it will just make you look foolish by promising them great pool water only to have it all screwed up again. You'd be better off spending some time explaining TFP to them and letting them decide.

Do you see the underlying problem here? It's not chemicals. It's a problem with their attitude. They need to WANT to be in control of their pool. Right now what they want is all the fun of a pool but someone else to be responsible for taking care of it. It's their pool and they should be the ones managing it, not you. You can certainly point them in this direction but you should not become their pool boy.
 
Mike Hawk said:
Which I think I might be at a turning point for them to see a different way. I've discussed tfp to them before and I think they just get overwhelmed. Like trying to drink from a fire hose.
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I think you simply need to accept the fact it's their pool and they're free to do anything with it. As was pointed out they might not even want to bother with it. Personally I wouldn't have a problem with that at all.
 
Mike, I know you mean well. But if you add borates and salt, you're kinda robbing them of the opportunity to learn the what, the why, and the how.

Pool product mfgs are always enabling learned ignorance for pool owners, and avoiding that kind of disempowerment is what TFP is all about. Treating a pool FOR someone is just as much a magic bullet as the pool store, and fosters continued ignorance. Its the old "teach a man to fish" saw ;)

Honestly, while they're gone, treat the pool the way they would, but do a reading and leave a note with their balance numbers, the web address for TFTestkits.net, the web address to TFP, and tell them you'll support them if they get a test kit and read up but that they can't use your methods to balance the pool without their own kit and knowledge of balance parameters. Its the truth.
 

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